So I have to say that for me personally, living in White Rock/South Surrey is as near to perfection as I can dare to imagine.

I am not typical by any measure, so don’t therefore expect many of my reasons to dovetail with your own list of traits for your perfect place. And I know how you do so love lists. I’m OK with that difference. You should be too. Variety is the spice of life. As Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love once posited, it might also be the logical plural of spouse (as mice is to mouse), and it’s definitely a Yorkshire term for sweets or “candy”, as it is hereabouts called.

Didn’t take me long to get off-topic there, did it?

It rains a lot in WR (I was born in Yorkshire, remember? It’s a good thing, rain. I like it!). But here, it means it. When it rains, ducks drown. We probably get a similar amount to Vancouver’s annual 44″ which is actually a couple of inches less than Yorkshire per annum, but not spread out over the year nearly as much. None of this messing about with days of non-committal drizzle like I grew up with.

But, alas, nothing is ever totally perfect. We are perilously close to the border with the US. This in itself isn’t an issue. Americans are, on the whole, quite decent folk. The ones in Washington State are particularly laid back, and make pretty good neighbours generally (plus or minus the airborne effluent from their power stations blowing up the Fraser Valley). But, their proximity has the unfortunate side effect that we in BC are subjected to their TV broadcasts. These unfortunately do not stop at the 49th parallel, but seep insidiously across and are picked up on the more impressionable TV screens here in the British Commonwealth. It is due to this phenomenon therefore that I happened to witness possibly the worse advert ever made, while walking past my teenage son watching TV (I think he’s actually taken root on the settee).

Not only is it poorly acted, but it epitomises pretty much everything that’s wrong in the world. First and foremost, it’s for a lawyer, so must inherently be demonic (sorry Kianys ;) ). Secondly, the TV ad within the TV ad has a slightly better actor (though with a face as hard as granite) depicting a woman who seems to delight in revenge on her husband who (understandably from what little I’ve seen of her!) wishes a divorce, and she is inherently encouraging the audience to reap similar retribution on their unsuspecting partners with a pre-emptive strike.

See what you think, but for me, it’s like politics… we get the advertising we deserve!

Just got back from a run with a couple of familial pachyderms, and now need to wait my proper turn in the pecking order for the shower (whilst hoping there’s still some hot water left by then. They’re female. Draw your own conclusions…) So in the meantime, I obviate any need for feeling good about the run by eating a mince pie, listening to Mother Mother in preparation for tomorrow’s concert, and of course surfing the net.

You know you’ve had a good read when you close the book, put down the manuscript, hit “Home” or whatever, and go “hmm…” in a contemplative tone. The words – pored over for hours, days, or even longer, by their guardian, have been herded like so many cats until they made the form always imagined at the outset. They have hit home and made you think. That’s rarely a bad thing. Wandering along the back roads of blogsville, I came across the Raleigh Review. Turns out to be a literary and arts magazine, and nothing to do with bicycles at all.

On its pages, I came across a piece called “Gaia” by one J.M. McDermott: We hadn’t quite invented marriage, so we couldn’t quite divorce when he invented infidelity.

Made me think. (It happens sometimes, if I’m not careful enough.)

If you’re not in an emotionally delicate place right now, you might find it worthy of a few minutes too.